Entropy and Information are statistical quantities describing an observer’s
ability to predict the outcome of the measurement of a physical system. Because
an observer’s capability to make predictions is not a characteristic of the
object the predictions apply to, it does not have to follow the same physical
laws as those befitting the object. Thus, the arrow of time implied by the loss
of information under standard time-evolution is even less mysterious than the
second law of thermodynamics, which is just a consequence of the former.

[mentioned in reference to the information loss paradox of the black
hole]

Entropy…Shannon Entropy

Entropy quantifies the ability of observers to make predictions; in
particular how well an observer equipped with a specific measurement apparatus
can make predictions about another physical system.

[a measurement of measurements]

For Shannon entropies, or
uncertainties, we only need to quantify our uncertainty about the possible
outcomes of a measurement [read: quantification] of that system. (No need to
consider the impossible outcomes.)

i.e. “An observer’s maximal uncertainty about a system is not a
property of the system, but rather a property of the measurement device with
which the observer is about to examine the system.”

By subtracting the uncertainty given by a measurement device from the
maximum potential uncertainty for the measured system, we get information.

The maximum potential uncertainty is potential information (how much is
knowable).

“If my actual entropy vanishes, then all of the potential information is
realized.”

Quantum Entanglement Theory

-occurs between the system being measured and the measuring apparatus,
which makes them one system, not a composite.

“Selves do not exist anymore after entanglement.”

After entanglement, the system grows to QA (not Q). Thus the detector
is asked to describe a system (Q) larger than itself because by its very
measuring-of-the-system (A) it makes the system (Q) include itself: (QA).

This non-separability of a
quantum system and the device measuring it is at the heart of all quantum
mysteries.

A quantum measurement is self-referential,
since the detector is asked to describe its own state, which is logically
impossible.

All Things Quantum – duality, The Observer, the Uncertainty Principle, the
simultaneous occurrence of all possible worlds, the renunciation of causality –
are counter-intuitive. It is a world where certainties have been reduced to
probabilities.

Quantum, the word, comes from ‘quantity’, or ‘how much’. Quantum Satis:
“The amount which is needed”. It refers to the smallest quantity by which we
are able to measure things. It only relates to things which happen to subatomic
particles, or at extreme temperatures. The Photon, for example, is a single
quantum of light, called the “light quantum”. In neurology, it refers to a
fundamental unit, or discrete component, of physiological response.

In general, but still from a scientific view, ‘quantum mechanics’ helps
us to categorize certain phenomena that cannot be explained using classical
physics, those being both Newtonian and Relativistic, (as the latter is for big
things, not small).

The Dual Processing System of Memory and Perception

In brain science, the idea of ‘quantum mind’ has been mostly cleared up
and given way to ‘quantum cognition’. The neurons of the brain do not function
by way of quantum mechanics; the software, however, seems to. The cognitive
system can be seen as using non-probabilistic, or quantum decision-making
processes, resulting in emergent properties of concept
accumulation/combination, memory, judgment and perception.

QUANTUM III

the hall of mirrors…

"If all potential ‘things’ stretch out infinitely in all
directions, how does one speak of distance between them, or conceive of any
separateness?"

-Zohar, p. 17-18

Vector States_kevindooley-flickr

Quantum is neither here nor there. The electron is not here; it’s in this general
area. Chances are, if you look in this area, you’ll find it. Quantum is
fuzzy. It’s about not-knowing for sure. Quantum is not about measurement, and
that is the confusing part. Is it or not? And under what conditions will it be
more likely to be, than not?

knots

Too many people are making up their minds about what ‘quantum’ means,
in their own ways, in crystal clarity, or tangled knots, all of them. Whatever
it is – this word, this thing – it is only what everyone says it is.

The impact of quantum physics, it seems, comes from its measuring not
of things dimensional, like sub-atomic particles, but of information. Discrete,
or small, is a reference to the amount, not of space or time, but of
information: yes or no, on or off. To reduce a system – an information system –
to this resolution – two possible answers – allows us to measure it discretely.
It’s not even a measurement of things anymore, but things yet-to-be!

This word, then, that which makes it so mysterious and so misinterpreted
is its reference to things not of our world.

We aren’t measuring things-that-are anymore, but the potential
possibilities of things. Experiments of this nature, in both lab and mind, are
conducted in the future; they are a
simulation of a future (not the future). It is experimentation with
potentialities, not with things.

Here is the fixation – this premise that we not only can predict, but
create the future, is suspicious, to say the least. But we do this all the
time. If a brick is sailing towards your face, you predict it will hit you, and
you move aside. You look at the probable futures, and you choose one. But even
analogy is dangerous in this prospect of questioning the quantum world.

“The world doesn’t exist until you say it does, and somehow that means
you can make it whatever you want.” How did we get here? From measuring data to
flexing superpowers? But there is a tempered middle becoming less ignorable. Creeping
into our social behaviors and our everyday technology alike, forcing us to make
sense, not of what quantum theory means, but what it means to all the
people who don’t know what it means.

Zohar, D. (1990). The quantum self:
a revolutionary view of human nature and consciousness rooted in the new
physics. London: Bloomsbury.

POST SCRIPT

Quantum Superposition
...fundamental principle of quantum mechanics that holds that a physical system—such as an electron—exists partly in all its particular, theoretically possible states (or, configuration of its properties) simultaneously; but, when measured or observed, it gives a result corresponding to only one of the possible configurations (as described in interpretation of quantum mechanics).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition

Networks are scale-free:

On the extreme separation of scales at which both quantum mechanics and
relativistic gravity work.

Quantum teleportation between
atomic ensembles demonstrated for first time

Lisa Zyga, November 19, 2012

One of the key components of quantum communication is quantum
teleportation, a technique used to transfer quantum states to distant locations
without actual transmission of the physical carriers. Quantum teleportation
relies on entanglement, and it has so far been demonstrated between single
photons, between a photon and matter, and between single ions. Now for the first time, physicists have
demonstrated quantum teleportation by entangling two remote macroscopic atomic
ensembles, each with a radius of about 1 mm.

Many outsiders figure that they don’t understand quantum theory because
they can’t see how an object can be in two places at once, or how a particle
can also be a wave. But these things are hardly disputed among quantum
theorists. It’s been rightly said that, as a physicist, you don’t ever come to
understand them in any intuitive sense; you just get used to accepting them.
After all, there’s no reason at all to expect the quantum world to obey our
everyday expectations. Once you accept this alleged weirdness, quantum theory
becomes a fantastically useful tool, and many scientists just use it as such, like
a computer whose inner workings we take for granted. That’s why most scientists who use quantum theory never
fret about its meaning – in the words of physicist David Mermin, they “shut
up and calculate”, which is what he felt the Copenhagen
interpretation was recommending.

The size of an object can be measured in many ways, such as by its mass, volume, or even the number of atoms it contains. And when it comes to quantum physics, "macroscopic" objects are considered to be larger than "quantum" ones, since the former are usually described by classical laws and the latter by quantum laws. However, physicists have been challenging the boundary between these two realms by performing experiments that show that multiparticle objects can exist in quantum superpositions. But there has been no standard measure of macroscopicity until now, as a team of physicists has proposed that the macroscopicity of an object can be measured in terms of certain parameters of the experiment used to probe its quantum superposition, rather than as a single property of the object itself.

Physicists Stefan Nimmrichter of the University of Vienna, Austria, and Klaus Hornberger of the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, have published a paper on the new definition of macroscopicity in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.Macroscopicity of Mechanical Quantum Superposition States, link, arxiv

just the intro to a relevant article:
One of the most basic laws of quantum mechanics is that a system can be in more than one state – it can exist in multiple realities – at once. This phenomenon, known as the superposition principle, exists only so long as the system is not observed or measured in any way. As soon as such a system is measured, its superposition collapses into a single state. Thus, we, who are constantly observing and measuring, experience the world around us as existing in a single reality.Researchers suggest one can affect an atom's spin by adjusting the way it is measuredphys.org, Mar 18, 2013

The trick is to design algorithms so that wrong answers cancel out and
correct answers accumulate. The nature of those algorithms depends on the medium in which information is stored.

Meyer and Wong considered a computer based on a state of matter called
a Bose-Einstein condensate. These are atoms caught in an electromagnetic trap
and chilled so cold that they "fall" into a shared lowest quantum
state and act as one.

Tom Wong, graduate student in physics and
David Meyer, professor of mathematics at the University
of California, San Diego

Watch the process of photosynthesis closely enough – at the femto-scale
– and it appears there are little packets of energy simultaneously
"trying" all of the possible paths to get where they need to go, and
then settling on the most efficient.

In an article published in the journal Science, researchers from ICFO-
Institute of Photonic Sciences, in collaboration with biochemists from the University of Glasgow, have been able to show for the
first time at ambient conditions that the quantum mechanisms of energy transfer
make photosynthesis more robust in the face of environmental influences.

Monday, January 28, 2013

War between those who accept the limitation of humanity and those who embrace the power of the possible is inevitable. The humans will not accept us, will not tolerate us, will not leave us in peace. They will fear us for our greatness, just as Nietzsche said they would fear the Ubermensch. In fearing us, they will seek to destroy us. They will be legion. We will be few. We will triumph, whatever the cost.-Anonymous, POSTHUMAN MANIFESTO, January 2038

Basically,

In order to combat criminals and terrorists using prescribed technologies, we have little choice but to embrace the enhancement of our own operatives. We can and must maintain operational supremacy on the battlefield. As such, we will use any means to ensure that the capabilities of our agents are unparalleled.-ERD POSITION PAPER, November 2035

She felt the missiles fire. They were aimed at the car. She couldn’t penetrate the security of the second helicopter, but the missiles were a different matter. They depended on an external source to inform them of their targets. She twisted their primitive minds, sent them spiraling back up at the craft that had fired them.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Investment in fiber optics is down, wireless is up. It leaves unused fiber laying around. By being able to deliver to specific customers on-demand, as opposed to a large-investment, wide-area of customers, PPP's can use up this unused fiber, and then run your life with it. (but not really; but then again; see below.)

"Seattle is one of several cities left behind by the major broadband providers, but it happens to have excess fiber capacity. But according to The Seattle Times, few residents have been able to take advantage of it, though Spectrum Networks does offer service in the South Lake Union neighborhood."

"The problem, Ansboury explains, is that the most expensive part of a fiber deployment is the what’s called the “last mile” service — bringing fiber from the big “backbone” connections to the customers’ homes and office buildings. Gibabit Squared will lease fiber capacity from the city and build much of the last mile infrastructure itself."-Mark Ansboury, president and co-founder of GigaBit Squared, broadband provider company\[The topic of bandwidth is next mentioned in the article, where we are looking at the potential for wireless to equal fiber. It is so very difficult not to remember Charles Stross, in his posthumanist scifi Accelerando (2005), where he places a lot of value on bandwidth in the future, and ever offers a solution to the Fermi paradox, claiming that the apparent lack of intelligent life in the universe is an illusion created by a shortage of bandwidth. Anyway, back to reality.]

...the secret to getting and maintaining these speeds is keeping the user count low, according to GigaOM

It's hard to see the future without wireless communication dominating all other forms. The problem with the future of bandwidth will not be what - the medium of transmission - but who and when is using it and at how much. It's a time-management issue mixed with some user-prioritization. We can imagine myriad package deals of data use, similar to peak times and multi-tiered data plans already in play. But now imagine that you need data to live, more than money, in fact, and the better job you have, the better your data package. The president can have maximum access of the total bandwidth if he wants, whenever he wants. Children under 6 years old get much less.

With so many new ways to create disparities within society, what laws will we be fighting for and against?

It may have started as a game, but Beowulf and his pals are poised to inject an important new tactic into oversight of the government’s monetary institutions.

The coin hack even surprised and impressed former U.S. Mint director Philip Diehl, who co-authored the law that enabled the platinum loophole in the first place.

“When I first heard about the idea to mint a trillion-dollar coin, I was very surprised,” says Diehl. “But because I know that law backwards and forwards, I knew immediately that the guy who came up with the idea was right."

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

"We have preconceptions about how an intelligent robot should look and act, and these can blind us to what is already happening around us. To demand that artificial intelligence be humanlike is the same flawed logic as demanding that artificial flying be birdlike, with flapping wings. Robots will think different. To see how far artificial intelligence has penetrated our lives, we need to shed the idea that they will be humanlike."

About Me

First things first, that's not a picture of me, although it could be any one of us. It's a painting by Alex Grey.
Next, the blog Limbic Signal is an extension of my book Hidden Scents, and the blog Network Address is a personal archive that I like to keep online for easy access.
Last, I'm a thirty-something male from Suburbia, New Jersey, a high school visual arts instructor, independent researcher, and writer.
Hidden Scents The Language of Smell in the Age of Approximation is my first attempt at authoring a work of non-fiction, and serves as a response to the dearth of information on the topic of Smell.